Huntington Beach has become the first city in the state to offer traffic school for bicyclists who break the law.

The city’s police officers now give cyclists the option of going to court and paying high fines or going to traffic school. Some counties, including Santa Cruz and Marin, offer traffic school for bicyclists, but court permission is required first. In Huntington Beach, violators will not need permission or go to court if they elect to take the city’s offer.

Unlike the much longer traffic school for drivers, the Police Department’s Adult Bicycle Safety Program takes two hours, said Lt. Russell Reinhart. Since the program began late last month, Reinhart said, most of those cited have gone the traffic school route. Ten people opted for the class the first day it was offered, he said.

Violators are charged $50 to cover the cost of the class, which also waives any other fees or fines.

“It’s a good deal,” said Frank Yonemori, who rides his bike several times a week in the city.

The new policy does not apply to bicyclists caught riding under the influence of drugs or alcohol, said Police Chief Ken Small.

State law treats those who break traffic rules while riding a bike the same as if they were driving a car. The difference is that bike violations, except for the DUI equivalent, don’t appear on drivers’ DMV records.

For example, a bicyclist or a driver who fails to stop at a stop sign could end up paying $233.

“The process of going to court and paying that very high fine doesn’t seem appropriate for bicyclists,” Reinhart said.

In traffic collisions involving bicyclists and cars between 2008 and 2010, two-thirds of the time the bicyclists were at fault, according to city data. That points to the need to help bicyclists improve, but the law doesn’t provide for that, Reinhart said; it simply punishes riders by levying fines.

The safety program, he said, “helps bicyclists save money and get more education as opposed to just paying fines.”

Yonemori, who was riding his bike on the beach with a friend, said Huntington Beach’s approach is a good one because many people are not aware of the rules. The class, he said, will help them become safer riders.

Steve Gardner, who was visiting Huntington Beach from his home in Oregon, said the rules should apply to everyone, as should traffic school.

“We should have the same options when it comes to fines and violating the law,” he said while biking near the beach.

The Huntington Beach Police Department is now offering a new Adult Bicycle Safety Program as part of our continued effort to be a bicycle friendly community. The program is administered like the Juvenile Bicycle Safety Program which has been at our department since 1972. Under this program, individuals issued citations as bicyclists or pedestrians for minor traffic violations can attend the Bicycle Safety Program and have the citation dismissed.

This new program is designed to decrease bicycle involved traffic collisions and encourage safe bicycle riding with adult riders. When stopping adult bicyclists and pedestrians for minor traffic violations, police officers will now have the ability to issue an Adult Bicycle Citation in lieu of a regular Traffic Citation.

The new Adult Bicycle Citation will allow the individual to attend a two hour Bicycle Safety Class for a $50 fee, similar to Traffic School for motorists. The class will be held on the third Thursday of each month in the Huntington Beach City Council Chambers. After attending the class, the citation will be dismissed and no further action will be taken against the individual. If the individual desires to contest the citation, or chooses not to attend the class, the citation will be forwarded to the court and treated as a normal traffic citation.

In the court system, bicycle violations carry the same fine as vehicle violations; however, there is no point attached to the individual’s driving record. For example: Vehicle Code section 22450(a), “Failure to Stop at Stop Sign” has a fine of approximately $233 and one point on a driving record. For bicycle violations, the point is not issued but the $233 fine is still applied.

What level of quality can one find in two hours? It would have been smarter to require, not offer, a Cycling Savvy course and produce from these citations new, skilled cyclists. It’s even possible to consider that law enforcement officers would be more inclined to write up an offender on a bicycle if they knew the result would be a cycling safety course!

This strikes me as brilliant. I know people here are heavily invested (and quite rightly so) in the extensive Cycling Savvy curriculum, and in a perfect world that’s what offenders would receive, but as a practical matter I think this is the right approach. Scofflaw cyclists are often hard to catch and not worth the Police’s trouble (after all they’re primarily only putting themselves at risk) but to the extent improved road citizenship is a result (and what do you really learn from paying a fine?) then traffic school seems like the right application of the awesome power of the state.

And given the “bikelash” these days, as a long-time lawful cyclist, I’m not opposed to a few more cyclists getting written up if smarter safer cycling is the result (call me a traitor, if you must…)

It also difuses the oft heard gripe that traffic enforcement is only about revenue generation. I do wonder however about the assignment of fault stats for Huntington Beach – they seem quite at odds with those found elsewhere as reported recently in the New York Times.

Like others posting , I wonder what whould be taught?
Trying to think what I could cover in two hours that would be useful- state law- but I’d need a riding class to show and have students demonstrate how to use it.
Thinking OK, it’s a start,maybe,but this class may be more of a punishment than viable training.

Fault is an ugly distraction. It just leads to finger-pointing and retribution. In CyclingSavvy we focus on what’s possible. It’s possible to bike in such a way as to dramatically reduce conflicts and risk. It’s possible to bike in such a way as to make motorists less anxious and frustrated. I know it’s possible because lots of us already do it.

I’m becoming increasingly wary of top-down solutions. The police aren’t going to tell cyclists what’s possible and positive; they’re going to warn bicyclists not to do stupid things, and the cyclists will react by saying (or at least thinking) that motorists do all sorts of stupid things. Back to square one.

I wasn’t thinking of fault in the sense of finger pointing, Mighk. Instead, I was wondering if the 2:1 disparity was indicative of an anti-cyclist bias in police reports, or the motorist’s point of view prevailing over cyclists. Regardless of fault, it’s the cyclist leaving the scene in an ambulance so the police officers hear only one side of the story. It’s a data collection issue. The reports are supposed to be standardized, and while they’re still imperfect, they’re better than the older hospital reporting system. All of it ends up in FARS, but I have yet to figure out how to tease good data from the heap.

I understand. As a bike planning professional, I’ve been guilty of mis-use of fault-oriented stats. That’s why my 2006 bicyclist crash study tried to frame the crashes through what each person could do to reduce them through their particular role (cyclist, motorist, engineer, officer, planner). The cyclist is the individual in the best position to improve his or her safety. We have to frame the data in that manner.

It’s purposely overlooked. People who are invested in retributive thinking (a characteristic of most of our culture) fear they would lose something valuable if they traded entitlement to victimhood for ownership of personal responsibility.

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Cycling Savvy is an innovative traffic cycling course developed in Orlando Florida and now taught in cities around the country. The course teaches the principles of Mindful Bicycling. It will give you the skills and understanding of the roadway to go anywhere by bike.